


Water Prison

by Clementive



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/M, Low Fantasy, Magic Realism, Neji-centric, NejiTen Month 2019, Soul Bond, Star-crossed, Symbolism, small mercy Hizashi is alive, this is kinda weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 06:30:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19740142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clementive/pseuds/Clementive
Summary: In each ripple of the pond, there was her face; a girl he had never met. Little did he know, she will haunt him for the rest of his life in every reflecting surface.





	Water Prison

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how it happened, but there's magic realism in there. So, let this be a fair warning: It's a weird fic.

_5 years old_

Neji crouches over a pond behind his uncle's house. His summer kimono sticks to his skin, the heat flattening his hair against his skull. His legs grow numb from his crouching.

Black and white koi swirl in the pond, chasing their tails, their movements, fluid, hypnotic. The black koi gushes, the water delicately parting like curtains. Neji's glance follows the fish, but he sees something _else_ in the water. There is something _else_ in the movements of the fish, something that is sleek with water, yet dry, skin that gleams.

His fingers hesitate over the ripples.

There is no reflection of him in the pond.

Neji sees someone else's fingers, below his, spreading slowly, an elegant naïve gesture hidden in a swallowing sleeve of silk.

His heartbeat dampened to his ears, a foreign throb in his chest now. The world swirled around him. He is submerged, the water is piercing through him. His vision is blurry and he tried to open his mouth to tell Hinata, but he reminds himself that he can't see, speak or breathe underwater.

When he looks over his shoulder, Hinata is still standing two feet behind him, but she is rippling out of existence.

The girl is facing him now. Her pale robes, her partly undone hair float around her. She presses a finger to her lip, smiling playfully.

Neji nods and gestures to the surface, but she shakes her head, her fingers still to her lips.

His chest burns.

He gurgles, and he realizes she's made of the bubbles he breathes into the water. He is breathless because she exists. He opens his mouth, and she moves again, stringed to him. She gestures for him to listen.

The water gushes.

It rustles.

It crashes.

Finally, he hears it, foreign words, shifting, spinning, serenely recited like a poem. The voice is older, at once light and crushing like water: "The pond is where we crossed path the first time. Do you remember?"

Neji blinks and the girl is gone. The voice is dead.

"What are you doing, Neji-niisan?" Hinata says meekly, and she tugs at his sleeve again, her lips red from biting.

Desperately, Hinata glances over the house, searching for her father and or her uncle's silhouette.

She can't fully explain it to herself, but she is troubled by the glint in her cousin's eyes, the stiffness of his body over the water. He stands like an empty house, at once solid but creaking, swaying in the wind.

"Neji-niisan?" Hinata grips his shoulder, and he resurfaces, water spilling from his every pore. His skin gleams oily, cold, his kimono dripping. He spits water on the stones. He looks up at her, his eyes widened. The white koi in his grasp wiggling desperately.

He releases the fish, still coughing. In a splash, it is gone.

Hinata yelps taking a step back. Then, she cries, bellowing for her father. She says Neji-niisan has fallen in the pond.

"But I haven't," he whispers. "It's the pond. It swallowed me."

Neji glances at his hands wondering when he had caught the koi. He tries to stand but his feet have sunken into the mud by the pond, all feelings in his legs gone from his crouching.

And all he feels is how she is gone. The little girl in the pond.

* * *

_9 years old_

Neji can see her clearly in the mirror as he hops. She mimics him, flapping her arms like wings, her long sleeves rolled up over her delicate hands. He hops again, giving her a small encouraging nod, so she would hop too.

"Neji!" his father calls from the porch, his hands on his hips.

He freezes. The girl looks over his shoulder with widened eyes, a grimace of fear curling down her lips.

His father's eyes hesitate between Neji and the mirror placed on the ground next to his feet. Neji lowers his arms and puts his foot back to the ground, his face flushed. Heavily, his father goes down the stairs muttering to himself.

"Mama has asked you not to take her mirror anymore."

"I don't like playing alone," Neji shrugs.

 _I_ _never play hopscotch alone_ , Neji means to say but somehow all the sentences he says to his parents recently, are wrong. His parents exchange looks over his head. His mother forgets about the kettle, her eyes refusing to leave him when he eats. Once he caught a glimpse of the girl from the pond in a spoon he wouldn't let it go for a whole evening. More looks exchanged, more sighs, more hushed conversation when his parents think he is asleep.

Hizashi's eyes drill through him.

Neji adds nothing more.

"You should have visited young Lee from next door if you didn't want to play alone," Hizashi replies and clicks his tongue. "A mirror isn't a friend, Neji."

His father pinches his lips, eyebrows furrowed. ' _What is wrong with this boy?_ ' He shakes his head, holding up his hand for the mirror.

"Now, give me the mirror please. It's precious to Mama, understood?"

Neji reluctantly picks up the mirror, and he grimaces when he sees her holding both hands to her mouth to hide her laughter. He opens to explain to his father that he will lose if he can't finish the game against her, but his father has already taken the mirror from his hands.

Hizashi sighs, and Neji shifts from one foot to the other.

In the mirror, the girl winks at him from between his father's fingers. She grins, and waves at him, as Hizashi climbs up the stairs back to the house.

Neji walks to Rock Lee's house. Somehow, he knows this is what his parents expect of him. _A mirror isn't a friend_. _Rock Lee is a friend_.

He rings the door bell.

He moves his head slightly, searching for her in the reflection of the sun on the window.

* * *

_12 years old_

Neji learns about 'phantom limb', and how there is pain even when the limb is gone. He begins thinking of her that way; a phantom limb.

A phantom self.

* * *

_14 years old_

Her eyes flash, accusatory, and she is a tsunami, a terrible force, whirling devastating anger.

Gone is the girl that laughed, her hands pressed to her mouth. Gone is the girl that waved excitedly. Gone is the girl that untied her hair in the pond, free and happy.

Now, she is always angry. She grows, disproportionated, long limbs, angular elbows, elaborate hairstyles she can't easily shake off anymore to play with him.

She walks next to Neji, across the building's windows, burdened by heavy robes and a headdress of red marbles and gold. A reflection or a ghost, Neji can't decide anymore.

He ignores her.

She has stopped reaching for him.

Gone is the boy who smiled, small, but with resolute warmth. Gone is the boy that looked for her before she looked for him. Gone is the boy who treasured her, a well-kept secret.

Now, he is constantly terrified he can't be normal. He has grown cold, distant and stiff. His voice is shaking, breaking, his body as foreign as hers is to her. They can't play. They can't look at each other without something _else_ lurking between them, a swirling koi, piercing to the surface.

She thinks he has betrayed her first because he pretends not to see her.

He thinks she should have appeared next to him instead of hiding in reflections. He is angry at her. He can't forgive her because she is stuck in another timeline, with robes that don't fit in his modern times. She betrays him by not existing next to him.

Everything changes between them, body and soul, and still they hold up their hands grazing reflections, never touching skin.

They are terribly angry, hollow, their hearts beating, joined underwater.

They are terribly hurt, trapped in a water prison.

* * *

_17 years old_

The woman holds her fan in from of herself, her red painted lips parted in a silent scream. She is dressed in mourning clothes.

She doesn't cry. She parts, boiling water, ravaging steam.

She is in the mirror of the bathroom's dormitory, invasive, and they look at each other like missing pieces of each other, echoing pain and hurt.

"Leave me alone," Neji scowls and chokes, full of her.

She has no place at his college.

She should have no place in his life.

He rips her off the wall.

She is upside-down, held by his whitened hands, his shaking grip. Gasping, he tries to shake her off the frame, so he can finally be free.

She screams in his heart. In his head. In his soul. Everywhere inside of him, she screams. She doesn't scream from inside the mirror. She screams from inside him.

She has always inhabited him.

Neji breaks the mirror. The break echoes like ripping thunder. He pants, his whole being shuddering at what he has done. The woman looks up at him with saddened eyes and he sinks to the floor, gripping the bathroom cabinet.

He closes his eyes, his throat closing, over his breathless chest. Nauseous.

There are seven pieces of her now, and he owns none of them.

"OI DUDE, WHAT THE FUCK?" His roommate yells from the other side of the door. The doorknob rattles. Kiba knocks louder. "ARE YOU DEAD? _What the fuck did he do now_?"

Neji freezes, and his fingers curled back like claws in a shaking fist. _What_ _'_ _s wrong with this boy? What the fuck did he do now?_ Neji stands up. He wants to belong. Desperately. Absolutely.

He hurls the door open, his gaze icy and disinterested, flickering across his roommates' pale face.

"The mirror fell. I'll clean it up." Neji brushes by him, his steps resolute.

"Christ, I thought you died..." Kiba Inuzuka ran a hand in his spiky hair, his gaze shifting across the mirror pieces.

Detached, Neji looked over his shoulder at him.

"You should stop cursing so much, Inuzuka. It's unbecoming."

* * *

_20 years old_

Neji passes the bar with her in his wrist watch.

Stiffly, she inclines her head until it rests on the curve of his watch frame, cupping her cheek, a reflection that ticks and clicks, a boat passing by, restless waves on shore. She doesn't look directly at him. Her hands are covered in black powder, and she is more ink, more death, more steel than he is used to.

She is at war, Neji knows.

Somehow, he is at war too. But he also lives in modern Japan, no war, no katana, just his bar exam.

Neji ignores her the best he can, checking his answer, neatly writing out expansions to his previous interpretation of the law. Around him, others scribbled, striking out their answers with unsure movements of the wrists.

He wonders if he feels so confident because she is there. Because she holds the time, in his watch, dressed in an armour the same colour as her eyes. Because she is a warrior now.

"Tiantian," she says finally but there is no sound. Her name is a ripple in time.

The point of his pen trembles over the page.

She isn't speaking to him.

She is speaking to him.

"My name means little by little," she continues and she slowly, tenderly unsheathes her sword. "This is how we'll find each other: little by little."

There's a piece of him missing.

There's a one too many piece of him when she is there. She overflows him.

His watch ticks, and she completes a full circle before vanishing, her sword gleaming, pointed at someone else. The timer shrills marking her absence. The end of the exam. The beginning of his life as a lawyer.

He puts his wrist watch back on, blinking rapidly, his pale eyes lingering on the passing time.

He wishes he could wait for her eternally.

He wishes he didn't have to wait for her eternally.

* * *

_25 years old_

His uncle and his father have arranged the date.

Haruna is a woman from a good family, she would be a good wife, they have agreed. They have called him all week with tips and have urged him to book a table at a small, but extremely coveted restaurant.

" _It would show you're serious,_ " his father has concluded.

" _It would impress her,_ " His uncle has added with a stiff nod.

Neji is cool but affable, they have relied on to Haruna's family. A successful lawyer who is ready to settle down, his mother has whispered to Haruna's mother with a knowing smile.

Neji regrets agreeing to the match now.

Haruna speaks, and he hears nothing. He doesn't see her. He only sees Tiantian's reflection in her eyes. She is playing the gupin, with cutting movements, and he merges with her as they often did, sorrowful. Soulful.

She is steel.

She is poetry.

And he is the same alongside her.

The music is ripping him apart. It is mending him. Somehow, he knows he exists to hear it and silence it.

Haunted, plagued by the melancholy in the woman's face, Neji tells Haruna at the end of the night: "it's not you."

She is caught by surprise. Hasn't he looked in her eyes all night, with softened features and a small smile? Now, he avoids her eyes. He is cold and kilometres away, as if he has never truly seen her. He buttoned back his coat and doesn't help her with hers.

Haruna laughs sardonically, then, gripping her coat, the corner of her eyes wrinkling. For the briefest moment, he is free from the woman in Chinese clothes reflected in her eyes. The music dampens and he can almost hear Haruna's voice.

"Are you serious, right now?" Haruna sneers. "You're supposed to end this with: "it's me. It's not you, it's me.""

"But this isn't what I meant. It's not you," Neji replies stiffly, appalled by all the emotions bubbling inside him.

He is frustrated. He is empty. He is lost, his heart submerged in a pond. In the belly of a koi. In the egg of a water turtle, an egg that was both born too late and too early.

Haruna leaves in a hurry, cursing him, and he wishes he could be normal.

Later at his apartment, when he closes his eyes, he hears Tiantian's voice. Older and wiser, deformed, as if underwater.

"Where are you?" she whispers, and there is the weight of her in his bed even if he can't touch her.

Even if he can't answer her: "Where are you?"

He grips the pillow, tosses the bedsheets. Searching and searching, like he had done his entire life. The bedsheets drips like water, like silk between his fingers.

"Where are you?" he bellows in the night.

In his kitchen, the faucet leaks.

* * *

_26 years old_

Neji tells two more women: "it's not you", before his parents give up.

His mother shakes her head, her hands working fast over her knitting. "He is not ready to settle down," she confides in her friends, and immediately blames it on his generation: "They haven't known war like we did. They've no sense of urgency to settle down!" Her friends nod with enthusiasm, pretending they haven't heard the rumours of her son. "He's cold, weird and arrogant! He didn't say a word all night, except: "it's not you". The nerve of him!"

His father wonders if they haven't pushed him too much: "We both married when we were much older, after all."

"You spoiled him too much," his twin replies snippily, and he drinks from his cup of tea to smoulder his rage. "The Matsuda won't even look at me in the face after last night. You tell him I won't help him anymore if he doesn't behave better."

* * *

_29 years old_

The art gallery is crowded.

Hinata hovers around him, smiling and nodding happily as he points things out about her paintings. He notices the lightest brush, the thickest layers, and how they build a story.

"It's a beautiful art exhibit. Congratulations, Hinata-sama. I'll buy you one," he gives her one of his rare smiles.

"You don't have to..." she blushes, and something moves out the corner of his eyes.

It's her. Tiantian. Taking possession of him, again, little by little.

Beaming, Hinata excuses herself to welcome a potential buyer, but Neji barely notices.

He turns back toward a painting and she is waiting for him there. Tiantian is kneeling where Hinata has painted the moon over a pond. Her white light robes gleam. Her hands moves slowly across her hair as she brushes them. Moonlight cleaved by rough shadows. Her throat quivers where the paint is the most delicate. She sings, he knows.

"It has been a long time," Neji mutters as he looks up at her, his hands in his pocket.

"Soon," she mouths, and there is blood on her lips.

When he buys the painting from Hinata, the moon is turning red, splatters boiling through the paint.

When he hangs it in his living room, Tiantian is gone.

* * *

_29 years old_

He mourns her in the commute to the Department of justice, to diners with friends, to his parents' house, to Hinata and Hanabi's apartment, his eyes flickering across the reflective windows of the trains rushing by.

He mourns her during rainy days when there is no one staring back at him in puddles, and during sunny days when there are no puddles.

He mourns her from Monday to Friday through law books he opens randomly and inclines toward the window, juggling the reflected words.

He mourns her from Saturday to Sunday, studying Hinata's painting, pacing in front of it, and later ignoring it from the oppressive coldness of his bed.

He mourns her, his breath easing, his ears not popping anymore, the water from his lungs draining. Little by little.

He mourns her until her name is all he remembers about her.

* * *

_32 years old_

The rain soaks him.

The headlights of passing cars are blurred by the heavy curtains falling down. The street in front of the Department of Justice is almost empty.

Neji curses under his breath, his broken umbrella tangling in the wind. The water in his ears is deafening for the first time in years. He steps in the street, and waves for a taxi, his collar turned up against the cool wind. He grits his teeth; quickly stepping back from another taxi splashing back.

Heels echo next to him, enhanced by the streaming water across the pavement.

"Did you have an umbrella or do you live dangerously?" she asks and she holds her red umbrella above both their heads. "Here."

Distracted, Neji thanks her roughly, glances at his watch and throws his hand again in the air for a taxi.

"I hate water," she breaths out, and the umbrella quivers, briefly inclined upward as she looks up at the falling sky.

The back of the umbrella drips down his neck with the movement.

"Oh sorry!"

She straightens the umbrella again, giggling uneasily.

With annoyance, Neji quickly glances over at her. He freezes. His arm falls back to his side. Her face is half-lit by the street lamp, thick shadows drawn by her eyelashes around her eyes, across her high cheek bones.

He would always recognize her.

"Hmm, aren't you not hailing a taxi anymore?"

"It's you," Neji says dry-mouthed.

He hesitates.

He touches her arm holding the umbrella. They tumble forward, past and present colliding. He sees her fully for the first time, in ancient robes. But he doesn't see her through his eyes. He is someone else. She is someone else. They are facing each other in a devastated garden, their swords at their feet. They are chiming, colliding pieces of each other. They whirl away, breaking water, breaking the circle. Until she is still holding an umbrella, and he is still soaked. Here. Now.

They pant heavily, their stares meeting and never letting go.

The umbrella thuds on the ground.

"It's you," she echoes.

She doesn't ripple.

**Author's Note:**

> This is without a doubt the weirdest fic I have ever written. I could be persuaded into adding one chapter in Tenten's POV in Ancient China, but for now this is it. 
> 
> Happy NT month, you guys!
> 
> Please take the time to comment if you can: it's awesome motivation for future projects.


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